


under this sky

by bbppff



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, M/M, area 51 is mildly significant but not because of aliens regrettably, dont let the road trip tag fool u thats only the first half of the fic, still.....substantial anyways, this got a lot more plot than i wanted lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7744906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbppff/pseuds/bbppff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't drive the pickup more than to make sure the engine would still turn over eventually, even if it took six times. But then Allura wanted them seven states over within two weeks, and Coran had only gotten plane tickets for Lance and Hunk. First class. Pidge wanted to look into something on the way, so she booked her own ticket. When the day of the flight came around and ticket time approached, they got an apologetic call from Coran instead.</p><p>Keith & Shiro have to road trip across the southwest. Also loosely mirrors certain elements of the show's plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under this sky

**Author's Note:**

> so this isn't entirely finished yet (this chapter is the first half of it) but i'm posting it to kick myself back in gear wrt writing the second half. dw abt it too much; i should definitely finish it within the next month, but i'm posting the first half to make sure that happens & to possibly push me to finish it sooner. the issue here is actually sitting down to write, lmao.
> 
> also some other things: shiro is still an amputee with a prosthetic, he still has ptsd, keith isn't overtly dealing with his own trauma in the narrative but certain aspects of his behavior & narration are influenced by it nonetheless. i describe him as "prickly" sometimes & a bit of a loner, but i want u all to know that isn't because of "keith has never had friends" sadporn. pidge is a trans girl. 
> 
> the scenes with shiro losing his arm are short & told in a relatively detached fashion because since i am not an amputee i didn't want to play up the tragedy there for outsider sadporn, yknow? that's the end of the notes i have, folks. go forth

“Do you think someone will report me to the staff if I wash my hair in the sink?”

Shiro didn't fully look up as he spoke, but watched Keith while his face remained turned down towards the menu. A small smile was on his face, and Keith told himself _don't blush don't blush don't blush_. “No,” he replied, standing his own menu up on the table, in front of his face. “Not if you charm them into understanding.”

Shiro tapped on Keith's menu, and it fell forward, onto Keith's face. He made a noise of annoyance and gave Shiro a look, but they both knew it was fake. _Don't blush don't smile don't blush don't smile._

The sound of the diner's kitchen was grating on Keith's nerves, and Shiro must have known it, remembered that Keith didn't like the sound of pots banging and blenders crunching, because he said, “I can ask for boxes to go when they bring our food, and we can eat somewhere else. Like the beach. Do you think that tourists will report me if I take a bath there?”

Keith, in turn, knew that even though it was a joke Shiro still couldn't stand the oily feeling of not having showered in a week. _Tell him he still looks okay, even when he hasn't showered. Better than okay._ He ignored that. “We haven't even ordered yet. I'm fine,” he said flatly. But then on an impulse, he added in about as teasing of a tone he could manage, “Maybe you should get used to it - if you weren't so clean all the time you wouldn't care.”

"Says you! This is your natural state.” Shiro was smiling full-on now, and looking right at Keith. _Don't blush don't blush don't blush_ \- he blushed anyway, and hid his face in the sticky menu again. “You don't mind it on me, though,” he said quietly, and knew that Shiro could hear the smile in his voice, even though the menu blocked his view.

“I don't,” he agreed, and the waitress arrived to ask if they still needed more time.

 

-

 

Keith didn't drive his pickup for a reason, and that reason was because it was shit. The paint was red, but dull and dirty. It needed a lot of work, and while Keith loved the mechanics of things, he hadn't gotten around to fixing very much of it yet. Leaving it to sit in his backyard wasn't a problem, because even though he loved it, he liked the feeling of driving his motorcycle more.

It was also red, but not completely, like the truck was. It was also shitty enough to take away any cool factor it might have given him, as Pidge had told him once. He had the gloves to match, and leaned into turns more than he should, strictly speaking. Lance always commented on the way the helmet messed up Keith's hair even more than usual, and _It's like you don't even own a brush!_

And yeah, weaving through traffic was still illegal, even on a motorcycle and even when he could drive defensively better than the people in actual cars around him. He had known this from the start, but racked up ticket after ticket for it anyway.

So he didn't drive the pickup more than to make sure the engine would still turn over _eventually,_ even if it took six times. But then Allura wanted them seven states over within two weeks, and Coran had only gotten plane tickets for Lance and Hunk. First class. Pidge wanted to look into something on the way, so she booked her own ticket. When the day of the flight came around and ticket time approached, they got an apologetic call from Coran instead.

“Well, you see, I _thought_ I had clicked four. . .”

They could have gotten the next available tickets, but the airport was a small one and the next flight out to their destination would've delayed them too much for Allura’s liking. So the impromptu road trip began. Lance had winked at Keith and made several suggestive gestures behind Shiro’s back, and Keith gave him a scowl before saying loudly, “Don't you have a _flight_ to go catch? First class?” His tone was a little too rude, and Shiro gave him a look saying _dial it back a notch_. There wasn't any anger in it, so Keith didn't mind.

“I can send you a list of the coolest museums along your route,” Hunk offered excitedly. “Oh, the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix has a great solar exhibit, plenty of things about alternative energy-”

“I'm sure they know about solar in _Arizona_. Fucking hundred degree summers, what the fuck,” Pidge muttered. She was squinting at her phone, and based on the reflection in her glasses Keith guessed it had to do with what she had mentioned seeing in Colorado. Something about an estranged family member?

“We'll be sure to check that out, Hunk,” Shiro told him. “Do they have any aviation exhibits?”

Hunk gave Shiro an outline of different science places in the southwestern states, but there were too many words he didn't know for Keith to pay attention. “Hey, Pidge,” he said, turning to face her again. She looked up and blinked at him. “What?”

“What were you going to Colorado for, again?” Something about it seemed off to Keith, but he couldn't say what it was. He felt that tug that meant he needed to find out.

“Well, you know how Area 51 is so secretive?” It was unlike her to avoid saying very much about something she was so clearly interested in, so Keith felt like she was testing the waters. She wanted to see if he would immediately scoff or roll his eyes. He did neither of those things, but instead just looked at her.

She continued after seeing he was still interested, and eventually picked up her usual speed while explaining something. It helped that she was proud of her work. “So my family lived in Rachel. In Nevada. It has a very small population - like, under one hundred - but it gets heavy tourist traffic because of Area 51. Anyways, when I was fifteen my dad and my brother Matt went missing.” Pidge took a moment to take a breath, and Keith said, “Wow, Pidge. I'm sorry.”

He didn't usually comment on or acknowledge other people's misfortune, and he'd been told this was because he “lacked substantial interpersonal empathy”. His way of showing that he cared was noting it in his head so that if it came up he could avoid any situations like this. His main concern was with more general morals; upholding those was more important than individual issues. And if Keith had taken a moment before speaking, he wouldn't have said anything at all. But something about losing a loved one - in Pidge's case, two of them - at a young age had sparked a flare of sympathy that Keith usually avoided showing. He understood what that did, understood the loneliness and angry grief. Pidge might have handled it differently than Keith did, but he knew that she would've been just as obsessed with it.

He hadn't sounded very soft when he'd said it, so it wasn't a total loss of face. It could be dismissed as a reflexive reaction. Pidge fixed her glasses for a moment, looking at Keith, and then decided to ignore his comment and continue explaining. Keith was glad.

“Well, yeah, it was a long time ago. I couldn't leave it alone at first, and I kept at it even after my mom had given up. But it's been years now, and I've had to set it on the back burner. Except then I got a notification from this site - that I built, it’s kind of a network for people who're looking for someone who's gone missing, but only if the person in question didn't leave of their own accord - and I get a lot of these, so the notification itself wasn't too unusual. But this one is definitely worth looking into. It's - kind of a long story. I'll tell you over the phone when I get there,” she finished, side-eyeing Lance, who had obviously been trying to eavesdrop.

“Oh, no, don't stop on my account!” He said. “I'll just be left out of the loop, it's fine.”

“It isn't that I _wouldn't_ tell you, Lance, I just would rather you had asked! I'll call you too. I need to go to my flight. See you, Keith.”

“Bye, Pidge.”

 

-

 

Keith was watching Shiro as he ran his hand over the dusty dashboard of the truck. It came away gray with dirt, and Shiro made a face while wiping it off. Keith smiled.

“So, what's the plan?”

Shiro unfolded a map - an actual paper map - and began explaining their route. “I’m surprised you didn't use Google Maps,” Keith told him. But they both knew that he didn't mind.

 _This is a bad idea_ , Keith thought.

 

-

 

The first day on the road hadn't been disastrous; Keith drove, and Shiro slept in the passenger seat. Talk radio played quietly. Keith didn't know what the hosts were talking about, and he didn't care.

He drove gently to avoid waking Shiro up. Every time he avoided a pothole or eased into a stop, all of the things he would've normally done played in his mind. There were two current tickets waiting to be paid for his driving; they were tossed into the glovebox. Allura said that Altea would handle it, but she had still been exasperated when she had told him.

It wasn't that he endangered others, exactly. Keith, who had been orphaned by a car crash, didn't put other people in danger on a small motorcycle. The pickup could've done more damage, but the highways they took through Arizona deserts had large vacant space. Still, he glanced over at Shiro sleeping into his seatbelt, and drove gently.

 _This has been a mistake from the start_.

 

-

 

It had started at the mechanic shop. Keith hadn't worked there very long, and he didn't work there anymore. But his foster parents at the time had owned it, and when they had discovered he liked mechanical things he'd been allowed a job.

He was sixteen, and on desk duty when Shiro had come in. Keith had an even more of an attitude problem as a teenager than he had now. People don't like a newly-made adult whose voice carried a harsh undertone and was generally considered frigid when around someone he didn't know, but people disliked that even more when in the form of a greasy sixteen-year-old who was more than a bit of a loner. He'd been called a brat at least a few times by most of his foster parents, among other things.

Shiro, on the other hand, was nice to strangers, and most everyone else too. So he had a vaguely apologetic air about him when he asked, “Hello, I'm here to ask about the free oil change advertised outside?”

Keith thought he knew this kind of customer: someone who was trying their best to compensate for the rude customers by being over-the-top about how nice they were.

But even so, something told him that Shiro was possibly just a good person, and something else told him that Shiro probably wouldn't think he was difficult. Or that he would, but wouldn't see anything wrong with it. Even Keith's friends didn't think that.

 _Stupid._   _He just got here; you don't know anything._ “It's free if you buy tires,” he answered, trying to keep his tone bored.

“Really?”

“Yes.” The foster parents were always telling him to just _sell_ things a little more, so on an impulse he added, “The minimum’s only one, though. And the labor charge for it is half off.”

He hoped this customer would stay a little longer. That was a new feeling.

“Well,” Shiro started, smiling. Keith felt himself blush slightly at that smile. _What the fuck?_ “I'll have to talk to the owner of the car about that, but if it's okay I'll get back to you.”

“I'm not always at the desk,” Keith heard himself say. Shiro tilted his head to the side.

“Sometimes I work in the garage. For the simpler things.” _Stupid. Stop talking. Customers don't care._

But instead of a polite, stilted laugh and “That's nice,” as an end to the conversation, Shiro looked interested. “You're a mechanic?”

“Sort of,” Keith said awkwardly.

“Do you know anything about planes?”

 _This is a bad idea_ , Keith thought. He didn't know why he felt like this stranger would care about him beyond this value as an employee, much less why he thought they might be compatible friends. Keith wasn't nice to people in ways that they accepted; Keith was too rough around the edges, too torn up from life. _They leave behind a young son, Keith, age seven, with no close living relatives._

_I don't know if you want to foster him. . . he's a bit difficult._

_What the fuck is wrong with you? Can't you just be civil?_

_This is a bad idea._

 

-

 

Keith volunteered for desk duty for the next week.

Shiro, never one to disappoint, came in on the third day. He seemed glad to see Keith there, although Keith told himself that was just reading too much into things.

“I can take it, if you want,” Keith blurted out. “I mean, the others are all busy, and this isn't complicated. I could do it.”

“Are you saying that I shouldn't have even brought it in, if it's so easy?”

Keith blinked and didn't know what to say, but then he realized that Shiro's tone was teasing and he had that distracting smile going again.

“Well, ah -”

Shiro laughed. It was even better than his smile. “Never mind. I'd like it if you could handle it.”

“I will.”

 

-

 

And that was how it started. Shiro showed up and teased Keith for being splattered with oil and grease, and Keith smiled and tossed a rag at him. At first, Keith had thought that he was the only one dragging their meetings out, and that it was just him who went out of his way to see Shiro.

Keith learned that Shiro wasn't technically the owner of the car, because he had gotten it from a friend of a friend, and that he was a year older than Keith, despite how tall he was. Shiro went to school across the city.

“Why do you keep coming around? The shop over on the north side of town has better free deals than we do.” Keith was wiping his hands off and tried to convince himself that it was a very attention-grabbing task.

“I'm not really this concerned about the car, Keith.” He was smiling again, and Keith blushed and went back to looking at the rag.

They fell into friendship over the course of two months, and if Keith felt a little more sometimes, so what? Maybe some friendships were supposed to feel that way. And even if they weren't, it's not like Shiro felt the same.

 

-

 

Keith pulled over at a rest stop and sat in the car for a moment. There were a couple of other cars in the parking lot, some shade trees, and a handful of picnic tables. He rummaged around and pulled out an old receipt, on which he wrote a short “be back” and left it on Shiro’s lap.

On his way to the bathroom building, he mapped out the place in his head; it was an instinct at this point. The large building to the east had doors to bathrooms and presumably an office. There was a family of five at one of the tables to Keith's left, and a truck driver was just pulling in. It was about 6:40 when he had left the car, but the summer sun would still be out for another hour or so.

On his way back to the car, Keith saw Shiro at one of the vending machines. Two of the kids at the picnic table were staring at him, presumably because of his prosthetic. Keith stood in their line of sight to block the view.

“What are you getting?”

Shiro glanced at Keith and smiled briefly as a hello. He looked drowsy, which he didn't often allow himself to show. Keith's heart skipped a beat, but he said nothing.

“Just a Gatorade.”

“Do you want to sleep some more?”

“Nah, I'll drive.”

 

-

It was good that Shiro drove, because Keith got a call from Pidge about an hour later. She used a group call from Skype, and he unplugged his earbuds to let Shiro hear. Lance jumped in before anyone else could talk, with a suggestive tone that made Keith want to punch him through the screen. “Shiro, my man! How's the trip so far? Keith treating you right?”

If Shiro suspected what Lance meant, he didn't let on. Pidge interrupted before he answered.

“ _Lance_ , I swear to God, this call is for important business and I will mute you if I have to.”

“You - you can't do that. Skype doesn't have that function,” Lance said uncertainly.

“ _I will_.”

“Alright, Pidge, what's going on? Why are you in Colorado?” Shiro said, steering the conversation back on track.

“Well. To skip a lot of exposition, my dad and brother went missing in Rachel, Nevada. It gets heavy tourism because it's close to Area 51, although the population itself is less than one hundred. We had moved there the year before. I have information that leads me to believe they might be in Grand Junction, Colorado. Which is where I am now. You can get a three-star hotel room for just over one hundred dollars, did you know?”

“Wait, so your family was taken by _aliens?_ ” Lance asked, eyes wide.

“Does this mission of your involve going _anywhere near_ these aliens, Pidge?” Hunk chipped in, visibly nervous.

“I'm sure this doesn't have anything to do with aliens, Hunk,” Shiro said soothingly. “Pidge, do you have any idea why they might be there? Are you walking into something dangerous?”

“Probably not.”

Keith raised his eyebrows. “ _Probably?_ ”

“Probably,” Pidge repeated. “I - maybe because of personal bias, but I doubt they left of their own will. I think someone who was passing through made them leave. But I also doubt they're in any current danger.”

“So, what, someone pretending to be an alien groupie kidnapped your father and brother for some reason as yet unknown, and they just skipped over the entire state of Utah to settle down in Colorado?” Keith's tone was even harsher than usual, and Pidge flushed. Keith refused to feel bad. This reunion mission of Pidge’s was something he could understand wanting - he had done the same thing when Shiro had gone missing - but right now it would throw off the entire objective Allura had for them.

“Well, they _went through_ Utah, probably -”

“Pidge,” Shiro interrupted, to keep the conversation from deteriorating completely into an argument. “What information do you have, exactly? I'd like to know what you're about to get involved in.”

“I've seen photos of them, and they aren't exactly locked in a basement. Just walking around and things like that. They look healthy, but there's a certain amount of secretiveness since I haven't been able to figure out what names they're using or which part of town they live in. But. . .I know it's them.”

There was a pause after that. Keith told himself that he should let Pidge have this; pointing out how flimsy the evidence was wouldn't help her. It also wouldn't stop her. Keeping himself from saying something when he felt confrontational was difficult, but he bit his tongue anyway.

“Pidge, I'd feel a lot better if we did this as a group, if you don't mind. Of course I understand if this is something you'd like to keep personal, but if it's okay with you I really think we should do this together,” Shiro said.

Lance, Hunk, and Keith all objected at the same time. Pidge just blinked and fixed her glasses.

“I'm just concerned about how little we know about the situation. It's entirely possible that this might go badly, and even if everything turns out perfectly fine, you could use help figuring out where exactly to find them within the city.”

There was another moment of silence, and then Pidge nodded slightly. “Alright,” she said, thoughtfully. “Okay.”

 

-

 

Allura wasn't happy about the delay in their itineraries, or the fact that Lance and Hunk had to leave Rock Springs, Wyoming, in favor of Grand Junction. Her reasoning for bringing them all to Wyoming in the first place had been vague, but she wasn't happy about making whatever it was wait.

In the meantime, however, she and Coran were treating this development as if it were a mission. Allura was running information from Pidge through databases that Pidge wasn't allowed to go in; she protested that she could get in anyway, and while no one doubted her they also didn't want federal trouble.

Hunk was the only one to bring up the obvious. “Guys, I don't mean to sound like Keith here - sorry, Keith - but why are we doing this? Pidge, why didn't you just turn this over to the police or something?”

Allura was the one to answer. “They probably wouldn't bother doing anything substantial. The case is almost three years old, and it was dropped within a few months anyway because there weren't any leads to prove that it had been anything against their will. Matt had just turned 18 beforehand, so it wasn't even a missing minor situation,” she said. She had been added to the second group call, and by extension Coran was there as well.

“Besides, this is a great training opportunity! We can see how you all operate in a situation slightly more controlled and significantly less dangerous than the original plan for the next month!” Coran said, too cheerfully for his words.

All five of them started questioning him at once.

 

-

 

The drive for Lance and Hunk to Grand Junction would be about five hours at least, and since Shiro and Keith were around the Flagstaff area they would be another eight hours if everything went well. Pidge was willing to wait a day and a half for everyone to get there, but Keith thought that if this had happened a few years ago they would've faced more difficulty when asking her for patience.

That's how Keith had been, too.

 

-

 

Two years after Shiro and Keith had met, and one year after Keith had acknowledged to himself that he was in love, Shiro disappeared.

He had been going to a local college as an underclassman, but he was a top student and everyone had been encouraging him to transfer to a better university. Keith had gone to the same college as Shiro, in the year below.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do about loving Shiro, but he knew he needed to stop himself from reading too much into the things Shiro did. That just made it worse. Almost every time they did something together Keith felt like Shiro must feel the same way as he did, and he had to constantly remind himself that he couldn't think things like that.

Shiro was the closest friend he had. Of course Keith could make acquaintances, and he had people who didn't hate hanging out with him. But mostly people thought he was too rude, too frigid, too angry. Shiro thought that too, but he didn’t let it get in the way. It was an odd paradox; by acknowledging that Keith was prickly - due to many foster homes, trauma, and assorted other things - in the process he also figured out what it was that bothered Keith and how to handle it.

Being someone who doesn't handle loss well, Keith was not the best candidate for becoming an orphan at the age of seven and eight different foster homes by the age of seventeen. But life didn't choose based on things like character or ability.

Keith was even less of a candidate for another loss at the age of eighteen. But life didn't choose based on things like character or ability.

 

-

 

Within the next three months, Keith had dropped out from college. He was technically expelled, although officially all that had happened was a firm suggestion to leave.

Two months after that, he had picked up odd jobs to pay rent for his room in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Where Shiro had been seen last.

Keith didn't know what he was doing there, but he also didn't know what else to do anywhere. It just felt right. So he shared a house with three other people - he would've much preferred to live alone, and was very vocal about this, but there was no way he could pay rent by himself. Because the house was technically theirs, they threatened to kick him out a dozen times. But they needed his $325, so he stayed there for eight months while he figured out what to do about Shiro.

Soon after he was declared missing, he was presumed dead. The police had found evidence of blood cleanup at his hotel room, but no one had seen anything, and the only person who had heard something just described “a struggle, and a gunshot.”

They said it was obvious a lot of blood had been lost.

The police were guessing that it was a robbery gone bad, but nothing had been taken except some clothes and his wallet.

Keith's housemates talked about him to their friends as this _weird conspiracy theorist dude, he'll bite your head off. His boyfriend went missing a few months ago and he can't let it go._

 

-

 

Allura had made them promise to stop at a motel, because they had been driving for eight hours already. She said that Altea would pay for it, so Shiro pulled into the parking lot of a place that had a VACANCY sign glowing.

“So how much is Allura covering? Like, are we getting - are we getting one room?” Keith had started talking before he had known what he was saying, and wanted to run himself over with the car.

Shiro looked at him, amused. “If that's what you want then I can go along with it -”

“Well, I was just saying that for you, you know. If you want two rooms that's fine, I can do that. It's up to you.”

“No, no, I'm fine with one as long as you are.”

“ _I'm_ fine with it if _you_ are.”

“That's fine.”

“Fine.” Keith crossed his arms, out of lack of anything else to do, and looked out the window. Shiro huffed, but it sounded like a poorly disguised laugh, and he got out of the car to go get the room.

 

-

 

There was only one bed. It was large enough that they wouldn't have to touch each other, but the idea of _one bed_ was still significant. Keith had known, logically, that if they had one room they would probably have one bed, but he still hadn't really thought it through.

He  _really_ wanted to run himself over with the car. Better to play this off like an accident.

“They didn't have a room with two beds, apparently?” His tone was as light as he could manage, which ended up being more telling than he'd like, considering he usually said things very differently.

He wasn't thinking anything through.

“They might have,” Shiro called over from the bathroom. He came back into the main room to look inside the closet. “I chose the room with one bed. I figured you'd be _fine_ with it,” he said, blatantly referencing their conversation in the car earlier. Keith flushed. “Are you making fun of me?”

Shiro looked back at him, suddenly serious. “If you aren't okay with it I can go ask for a room change -”

“No, no. I just - it's okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, and dropped his bag on the ground.

 

-

 

“Shiro,” Keith whispered.

“What?”

Keith pulled the sheets up to his chin in the dark. “Is this whole thing with Pidge's family - is it okay with you? It's not going to bring up memories of last year or anything, right?”

Shiro didn't answer right away, which confirmed what Keith had already known. “It _does_ , but it's manageable,” he said finally.

“If you need anything, you know I'd die for you.” Keith said it without thinking.

Shiro shifted on his side of the bed. “I know you would,” he said. “But please don't. I worry about you.”

“Don’t,” Keith said quietly.

“I still do.”

 

-

 

Keith woke up the next morning to sunlight coming in through the thin curtains and Shiro doing one-handed pushups on the floor. His prosthetic was laying on his bedside table, and the metal parts of it glinted in the light.

Keith lied there for a moment, sheets tucked up under his chin, and then said, “That carpet is disgusting, you know.” His voice was hoarse from sleep.

Shiro didn't look up right away. “It is,” he agreed. “That's what fifty dollars a night in the middle of the desert gets you.”

“Really? I thought that could get a half-decent blowjob.”

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro said, laughing.

He didn't want to listen to that laugh, or even look at Shiro's face, when he was shirtless and exercising on the dirty motel carpet. Instead, Keith rolled out of bed and said “I'll call Allura to let her know our ETA.”

Lance and Hunk were already there with Pidge, so this time there were only two little boxes on Keith's screen. “We still have about five hours,” he told them.

“Hurry up! It's boring in this hotel room. The robes aren't nearly as soft mine back home,” Lance said. He was lying draped over a chair, entirely too dramatic for the robe situation.

“I don't mind waiting,” Hunk told Keith. “Pidge is showing me this network site she built. The area is pretty massive, but the code is so simple. . .”

“Thanks, Hunk.” Pidge was visibly pleased.

“Just try to get there as soon as you can,” Allura said. “Coran wants to discuss the main plan for this once you arrive.”

 

-

 

Keith drove the rest of the way, and they stopped at a McDonald's somewhere along the road for breakfast. It was a little after noon when they reached Grand Junction, and Shiro called Pidge to get directions to the hotel.

When all five of them were in the room, Pidge started immediately. She pulled out several photos, two maps of the city, and called Allura to see if she had found anything yet.

She had. “They're going by their legal names, which are both common enough that there were a few dozen results for that county I had to sift through. I found out where they're living - but, Pidge. There's something you should know.”

“What? What is it?” Pidge demanded.

“You should all know why I wanted you in Wyoming, before you decide to do this instead.”

 

-

 

For Shiro's twentieth birthday, he got a prosthetic arm.

Not on the exact date - he hadn't known what the date was in months - but he estimated that he had lost his arm around the same month or so as his birthday. It had been from the dogs. Shiro had managed to save up a small cache of food, and he was given a golden opportunity to leave. It wasn't as much food as he would've liked, and his ribs were still healing from the last fight, but he couldn't convince himself that there would be a better chance than this.

He had managed to wear down the locks on his door, and the rest of the house's inhabitants were either in his position or passed out from drinking.

But it turns out that fellow prisoners will turn you in, hoping for a longer leash. Shiro was only one mile away when he heard the dogs. He tried to convince himself that they were just stray dogs, but to hear the kinds of vicious animals that his captors had on the night of his escape was too much of a coincidence.

When they got close and he knew without a doubt they were for him, he tried to climb a fence, but slipped and fell in his panic. Two of them bit down on his arm and shook.

His captors, for whatever reason, fixed him up with a clean surgery and, a couple of months later, a very decent prosthetic. It was state-of-the-art, and Shiro had no idea why they would spend so much money on someone they had sent their dogs to maul. A prosthetist came by several times to fit it and to explain some things about it, along with giving him a copy of physical therapy exercises. If she had thought anything suspicious about a college kid being heavily locked inside a room with no windows and a recent arm amputation, she said nothing of it. For Shiro, this confirmed that these people had plenty of money.

Six months later, he escaped for good. The police had wanted the entire story, so he told it to them, and later, to Keith.

Keith had managed to visit immediately, before visitors were even allowed, and Shiro was immensely thankful for it.

**Author's Note:**

> i have like, endless justifications for everything keith does in here & also for all the other details of this fic, but i had to cut out my long explanation paragraphs bc it made the fic really clunky & also i didnt want to have heavy-handed narration that holds the readers hand. however i have all of those thought trains still, so if you wanna know why things happened like they did & why they are/aren't different from the showverse pls ask! i'm happy to answer. i love talking abt this


End file.
